Transgenderism: a top-down politics of identity

Originally published at Spiked

Recent news items have drawn attention to transgenderism. Caitlyn Jenner, a trans woman, posed for Vanity Fair; Jack Monroe the foodie came out as transgender ‘with a non-binary gender’; Lennox Lewis’s former boxing manager, Frank Maloney, transitioned to the trans woman Kellie Maloney; and Eddie Redmayne is portraying a trans woman in The Danish Girl. Changing gender requires much state support in the form of counselling, hormones and surgery.

With increasing numbers of people, including children, seeking to transition, it’s worth asking whether it’s morally and politically right for the state to support this process.